American Reformation Church Prayer Journal 119
This pass Sunday, brother Derin A Stidd preached an outstanding message called Jonah, the Black Pilled Prophet. I watched it from GA while working on the movie, Closed for Christmas. I thought it was creative, inspirational, and extremely relevant to our current condition as Christians in America, especially, as it relates to young men in our culture.
Derin defined “Blacked Pilled” as a situation where things are so bleak and dire that people throw up their hands and give up on life. It takes pessimism to the point where it becomes debilitating for people to function properly in their station of life.
In the case of Jonah, he was a man who had become so convinced of the futility of obeying the Lord that he was willing to die to maintain his unbelief and disobedience. He knew God's Word, understood God's character, and believed in God's sovereignty. Yet, he did not want God's will to be established in this situation.
Jonah was not an unbeliever in the ordinary sense. He was a prophet who believed in God's power, but he resisted God's purposes. He could preach judgment, but he struggled to trust God with the outcome. His greatest problem was not that he doubted God could act, but that he did not want God to act in a certain way toward his enemies. He knew God’s character, “for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm” (Jonah 4:2b).
Interestingly, he had no problem crying out to God to be merciful to him, while he is floundering in a fish’s belly, but to the despised Ninevites, no way. God’s Word records, “Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish’s belly” (Jonah 2:1).
Jonah's first great prayer comes not from the temple, but from the belly of a great fish. He had disobeyed God, fled from his calling, and descended into the depths of the sea. Yet even there, he discovered that he had not descended beyond God’s reach.
Three truths emerge from his prayer:
• Being on a ship, running from God, and being thrown overboard did not provoke Jonah to pray. Prayer began when he recognized he was helpless in the fish’s belly. Jonah could no longer run, hide, or rescue himself any longer. His circumstances forced him to acknowledge his dependence upon God.
• Amazingly, God heard him in the depths. Jonah declared, “I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, and He answered me” (Jonah 2:2).
• Lastly, he acknowledges that salvation belongs to the Lord. It is the conclusion of the matter and of this prayer, “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9).
Jonah's prayer reminds us that God's discipline is not necessarily God's abandonment. Sometimes the Lord brings us to the end of our own resources so that we will learn to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11).
His next prayer is one of anger and complete frustration, “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry” (Jonah 4:1). Here we discover Jonah's real problem. Nineveh repented, and God relented from the judgment He had announced.
Instead of rejoicing that God blessed the preaching of His Word and the city was spared destruction, Jonah became angry to the point of death.
His prayer in Jonah 4:3 is startling: “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” Jonah had prayed for deliverance from death in chapter 2, but now he asks God to let him die because God had spared others.
What a contradiction! Jonah wanted mercy for himself but judgment for his enemies. This is a warning to every believer. We may rightly recognize the wickedness of the world, mourn the corruption of society, and pray for justice. But when our desire for judgment becomes greater than our desire for repentance and redemption, our hearts need a serious examination.
The lesson is not that judgment is necessary at times or that evil should be ignored. It is that we must never become so convinced of the world's wickedness that we cease believing in God's power to save sinners or turn things around for God’s glory and men’s good.
The Christian is not called to naïve optimism, pretending that everything will work out according to our desires. We are called to biblical hope—a confidence that God remains on His throne, His Word is true, and that His purposes cannot be defeated. May the Lord give us hearts that grieve over sin, pray for righteousness, trust His purposes, and rejoice whenever sinners turn to Him in Jesus’ name!
